The background description provided here is for the purpose of generally presenting the context of the disclosure. Work of the presently named inventors, to the extent it is described in this background section, as well as aspects of the description that may not otherwise qualify as prior art at the time of filing, are neither expressly nor impliedly admitted as prior art against the present disclosure.
Substrate processing systems may be used to treat substrates such as semiconductor wafers. Example processes that may be performed on a substrate include, but are not limited to, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), atomic layer deposition (ALD), conductor etch, and/or other etch, deposition, or cleaning processes. A substrate may be arranged on a substrate support, such as a pedestal, an electrostatic chuck (ESC), etc. in a processing chamber of the substrate processing system. During etching, gas mixtures including one or more precursors may be introduced into the processing chamber and plasma may be used to initiate chemical reactions.
A substrate support such as an ESC may include a ceramic layer arranged to support a wafer. For example, the wafer may be clamped to the ceramic layer during processing. The ceramic layer may be bonded to a baseplate of the substrate support using a bonding material. The baseplate may comprise a cooled aluminum baseplate. For example, the bonding material, or bond, may include silicone with a filler, an epoxy matrix material, etc. The filler may comprise a metal oxide particle. The chemical composition of the bond and the filler may be selected to prevent inadvertent contamination of the process chamber. Further, an overall thermal transfer coefficient of the bond is selected to optimize thermal transport from the ceramic layer to the baseplate via the bond and filler. The overall thermal transfer coefficient may correspond to, for example, thermal conductivity k, heat transfer coefficient (W/m-K), bond thickness, etc. For example, content, volume, etc. of the bond may be adjusted to optimize thermal transport.